Religious
parents never fail by devout prayer to consecrate their children to the divine
service and love, both before and after their birth. Some amongst the Jews, not
content with this general consecration of their children, offered them to God in
their infancy, by the hands of the priests in the temple, to be lodged in
apartments belonging to the temple, and brought up in attending the priests and
Levites in the sacred ministry. It is an ancient tradition, that the Blessed
Virgin Mary was thus solemnly offered to God in the temple in her infancy.[1]
This festival of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, or, as it is often
called by the Greeks, the entrance of the Blessed Virgin into the Temple, is
mentioned in the most ancient Greek Menologies extant.

By the consecration which the Blessed Virgin made of herself to God in the
first use which she made of her reason, we are admonished of the most important
and strict obligation which all persons lie under, of an early dedication of
themselves to the divine love and service. It is agreed amongst all masters of
Christian morality, that everyone is bound in the first moral instant of the use
of reason to convert his heart to God by love; and if divine faith be then duly
proposed to him (which is the case of Christian children) by a supernatural
assent to it, he is bound then to make an act of faith; also an act of hope in
God as a supernatural rewarder and helper, and an act of divine charity. Who can
be secure that in the very moment in which he entered into his moral life and
was capable of living to God, did not stain his innocence by a capital omission
of this duty? How diligent and solicitous are parents bound to be in instructing
their children in the first fundamental mysteries of faith, and in the duty of
prayer, and in impressing upon their tender minds a sense of spiritual things in
a manner in which their age may be capable of receiving it. These first fruits
of the heart are a sacrifice of which God is infinitely jealous, an emblem of
which were all the sacrifices of first fruits prescribed in the old law, in
token that he is our beginning and last end. Such a heart, adorned with the
baptismal grace of innocence, has particular charms. Grace recovered by penance
is not like that of innocence which has never been defiled; nor is it the same
happiness for a soul to return to God from the slavery of sin, as for one to
give him her first affections, and to open her understanding and will to his
love before the world has found any entrance there. The tender soul of Mary was
then adorned with the most precious graces, an object of astonishment and praise
to the angels, and of the highest complacence to the adorable Trinity, the
Father looking upon her as his beloved daughter, the Son, as one chosen and
prepared to become his mother, and the Holy Ghost as his darling spouse.

Her first presentation to God, made by the hands of her parents and by her
own devotion, was then an offering most acceptable in his sight. Let our
consecration of ourselves to God be made under her patronage, and assisted by
her powerful intercession and the union of her merits. If we have reason to fear
that we criminally neglected this duty at the first dawning of our reason, or,
if we have since been unfaithful to our sacred baptismal engagements, such is
the mercy and goodness of our gracious God, that he disdains not our late
offerings. But that these may be accepted by him, we must first prepare the
present he requires of us, that is, our hearts. They must be washed and cleansed
in the sacred laver of Christ's adorable blood, by means of sincere compunction
and penance; and all inordinate affections must be pared away by our perfectly
renouncing in spirit, honours, riches, and pleasures, and being perfectly
disengaged from creatures, and ready to do and suffer all for God, that we may
be entirely his, and that neither the world nor pride, nor any irregular passion
may have any place in us. What secret affections to this or that creature lurk
in our souls, which hinder us from being altogether his, unless they are
perfectly cut off or reformed! This Mary did by spending her youth in holy
retirement, at a distance from the commerce and corruption of the world, and by
the most assiduous application to all the duties and exercises of a religious
and interior life. Mary was the first who set up the standard of virginity; and,
by consecrating it by a perpetual vow to our Lord, she opened the way to all
virgins who have since followed her example. They, in particular, ought to take
her for their special patroness, and, as her life was the most perfect model of
their state, they ought always to have her example before their eyes, and
imitate her in prayer, humility, modesty, silence, and retirement.

Mary lived retired until she was introduced into the world and espoused to
St. Joseph. Some think her espousals were at first only a promise or betrothing:
but the ends assigned by the fathers, seem rather to show them to have been a
marriage. These are summed up by St. Jerome as follows:[2] that by the pedigree
of Joseph, the descent of Mary from the tribe of Juda, might be demonstrated;
that she might not be stoned by the Jews as an adulteress; that, fleeing into
Egypt, she might have the comfort and protection of a spouse. A fourth reason,
says St. Jerome, is added by the martyr Ignatius: that the birth of the Son of
God might be concealed from the devil. The words of that apostolic father are:
"Three mysteries wrought by God in silence were concealed from the prince
of this world. the virginity of Mary, the bringing forth of her Son, and the
death of the Lord."[3] Not that God could fear any impediment to his
designs from the devil; but he was pleased to effect these mysteries in silence
and without worldly show and noise, that pride and hell might, by his all-wise
and sweet providence, be more meetly triumphed over, whilst the devil himself
hastened his own overthrow by concurring to the mystery of the cross. From the
marriage of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, St. Austin shows[4] that marriage
requires no more than the mutual consent of the will between parties who lie
under no impediment or inability to an indissoluble individual society of life.
In this holy marriage we admire the incomparable chastity of Mary and Joseph;
and the sanctity and honour, as well as the patronage and example, which that
holy state receives from this mystery. In certain particular churches the
espousals of the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph are honoured with an office on the
23rd of January.

Endnotes

1 See St. Greg. of Nyssa, Serm. In Nat. Christ., p. 779.

2 In c. 1, Mat. p. 7, ed. Ben

3 St. Ignat. ep. ad Ephes. p. 16.

4 St. Aug. lib. de Nuptits et Concup. c. 11, n. 13, p. 287.

(Taken from Vol. III of "The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other
Principal Saints" by the Rev. Alban Butler.)